This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/671,798, filed Sep. 29, 2003. The contents of this application are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
Interactive mobile text and related services (including Short Message Service (SMS) and Multi-Media Services (MMS)), which facilitate such art as voting, gaming, information products, and real-time messaging continue to evolve in their popularity and ubiquity among network operators and mobile subscribers alike. The services provide for interactive and/or synchronous entertainment and commercial activities, as with real-time quiz shows, questionnaires, polls and related events. Indeed, owing to the growth, popularity and utility of such applications, telecommunications Network Operators (NO), marketers, and like interested parties seeks to build upon and capitalize such success by adding more applications and reaching more subscribers.
Nonetheless the prior art has neither demonstrated nor intimated an evolution of its teachings in this regard. Indeed, consider U.S. Pat. No. 6,178,331 to Holmes, et al. entitled System and process for allowing wireless messaging, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,493,558 to Bernhart, et al. entitled TD-SMS messaging gateway which both delimit art pertaining to SMTP Gateways and like systems, and indeed, unlike the system and method for implementing a Universal Messaging Gateway (UMG) of present, is only intended to serve subscribers of the home network and thereby does not include capability/ities of our invention to provide gateway service to GSM foreign subscribers and like users.
At a more generic level, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 20020087704 by Chesnais, et al. entitled Systems and methods for routing messages to communications devices over a communications network details a gateway system for performing protocol conversions. The art relating to our invention disclosed herewith however, exceeds such teachings, by inter alia, providing methods and systems for receiving Short Message Service (SMS), Multi-Media Service (MMS) and the like from foreign SMSCs, MMSCs and the like and routing them to the relevant home network and/or content providers.
References Cited
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 20020087704 July, 2002 Chesnais, et al. 709/228
U.S. Pat. No. 6,178,331 January, 2001 Holmes, et al. 455/466
U.S. Pat. No. 6,493,558 December, 2002 Bernhart, et al. 455/466